Small Cave Discovery at Indian Bread Rocks

Indian Bread Rocks is a cool place out in Southeast Arizona on BLM land. I drove here over a day ago to camp out in my truck and catch the Super Blue Blood Moon we had on January 30th and 31st.

Here's a look at the Super Blue Moon rising:

The Blood Moon Eclipse was going to happen in the early morning just before the Moon set in the West. I had this big hill composed of giant boulders in my way, so I woke up at 5am and climbed it in the dark to see if I could get a view. Unfortunately there was another rocky hill in the way, and after climbing it I found there was a mountain on the other side that, so I settled on enjoying the beautiful sunrise.

On my way down the mountain, I spotted in the distance what looked to be an entrance to a cave, and despite being hungry and thirsty I knew I had to check it out!

I recorded a video of the entire adventure which you can view at the bottom of this post.

Upon closer inspection of the cave, I discovered that it was formed by large rocks laying on each other in a formation which created an enclosed space which could serve as shelter from the sun, wind and rain with enough space for one person to lay down and sleep.

There's a second entrance to the little cave from the top, and exiting it that way revealed a space that gave me the strong impression this was a living space for someone a long time ago.

Check out the shape of this rock:

I discovered it looks intentionally hollowed out on the underside.

If there was a way to access water out here, this seems like it'd make an ideal location for living out in the wilds. I wonder if there was a river or stream flowing through here at one time, or if perhaps the climate was a little wetter than it is now.

I'm really loving it out here at Indian Bread Rocks! There a certain magic to this place that I haven't felt before… very calming. If you wish it, I hope you get the chance to experience it for yourself one day.

Likely, the Apache and other hunter-gatherers in times past caught rainwater. At City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico (north of Deming), that's just what they did. It may be also that water collects sometimes in between the rocks, in the shady spots.

There's also the wash on the north side of Indian Bread Rocks. Maybe water can be dug there. Worse case, Apache Spring is only an hour or two walk south of there.

I noticed shallow circular holes about 6 inches across dug into the rocks in a bunch of places, and they had about a half inch of water in them. I don't think it's rained here for days, so I'm guessing it's condensation from the cooler night before. What do you think?

Check out the video. Those are the metates, or grinding mortars, that give Indian Bread Rocks its name. They used them to grind acorns, mesquite, prickly pear seeds, etc. But yes, they collect water, too.

At City of Rocks, there are skinny channels to collect runoff from some rocks. I think they'd put vessels where the channels drained.

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